In Time, They'll be on Every Corner

May I top off your Zeppelin, or just your fuel-cell car? Hydrogen fueling stations are here, coming to a street corner near you.

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By Dennis Simanaitis, Engineering editor

May 10, 2007

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Just another hum-drum assignment? Don't bet on it.

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The "gas" at this station was really a gas, namely hydrogen. And the car I drove there was one of fuel-cell vehicles. The location was our nearby campus of the University of California Irvine, UCI, also home of the National Fuel Cell Research Center. The first station of its kind around here, it's also the first in California dispensing compressed hydrogen at either of two pressures, 350 bar (5000 psi) as well as 700 bar (10,000 psi). In time, there'll be a third nozzle for liquid hydrogen.

The NFCRC and Air Products, Allentown, Pennsylvania, engineered and installed the station. It looks rather like a conventional self-serve outlet, with separate nozzles for the two pressures and an electronic screen giving step-by-step instructions and receiving account-billing information. The price was set at $4.99 per kilogram of hydrogen, 1 kg being approximately energy-equivalent to 1 gallon of gasoline.

At this stage of hydrogen implementation, there's an artificiality of this price. It is based on logic, though. A fuel cell's efficiency is typically figured at twice that of internal combustion. Hence, in a mobility sense, $5 hydrogen is comparable to $2.50/gal. gasoline. The station's product is extremely pure, what specialists call "five 9s," as in 99.999-percent hydrogen. It's not clear that fuel cells need five 9s, but this is what the Air Products trucks supply in liquid form. The station has a 1500-gal. tank for liquid, together with gasification cylinders preparing it for dispensing to fuel-cell cars at the two different pressures. It takes three to six minutes to fuel a vehicle, at either pressure. As currently configured, the station has capacity of 25 kg of hydrogen per day, enough for five to 10 typical fill-ups. Not a lot, but it's a start.

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According to the California Fuel Cell Partnership, here are now 23 hydrogen stations around the state, with 14 more in planning. Thus far, more than 165 fuel-cell cars are in operation here.

In fact, though I realize it was a skewed sample, when I arrived at UCI there were already seven fuel-cell cars in the parking lot, plus four others from , , and on display. It's expected that automakers will use the refueling station for demonstration fleets already in place. What's more, GM and Honda have announced plans to put fuel-cell cars in public hands within a year.

Where do we sign up? And why not set up our UCI/NFCRC account now?

How risky is that anyway?

Carnegie Mellon University and the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety have set up TrafficSTATS, a neat interactive website detailing the multiple dimensions of traffic-safety risks.

For instance, who's more at risk as a pedestrian: a middle-age guy or an elementary-school student. Surprisingly, on any given walk the guy is four times more likely than the kid to be hit and killed by a car.

Another, which fits conventional wisdom: For those age 16-20, between 8 a.m. and noon on weekday mornings, the death rate for vehicle occupants is 13.86/100 million trips. It's more than twice as high, 30.51/100 million trips, between 8 p.m. and midnight.

A last one (and sure to alienate all three groups): An 18-year-old male driver is as likely to die at the wheel as an 80-year-old woman driver, but both are safer than the operator of a motorcycle.

The website is at hope.hss.cmu.edu and includes a useful tutorial and sample report.

Ethanol linkages

I guess this might have been foreseen. A surge of commitment in ethanol as a motor fuel has caused an accompanying spike in the price of corn tortillas, an important component of the Mexican food supply.

U.S. corn prices rose by nearly 80 percent in 2006. Tortilla prices went up 55 percent in the same period. Though tortillas are made from white corn, the price of the latter is indexed to that of yellow corn used to make ethanol. Prices for our own corn flakes, corn bread, corn syrup and other foodstuffs are also expected to rise; meat prices too, as cows, pigs and chickens eat corn as well.

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We subsidize the production of ethanol to the tune of 51¢/gal. And we discourage getting it, from Brazil, say, with a 54¢/gal. tariff on ethanol imports. The high cost of shipping from Midwest producers to refineries (recall, it cannot be sent through existing pipelines) certainly hasn't helped the price of ethanol-dosed gasoline either.

It's part of what columnist Deroy Murdock, writing in our local Orange County Register, calls the Law of Unintended Consequences.

Firing up an F1 car

Toyota Motorsports GmbH brought its test team to 2006 Monterey to do demonstration runs. I had a good chance to chat with Ricardo Zonta, fresh from demolishing the ultimate lap record around Mazda Raceway at Laguna Seca, and also with John Matsushima, an American who's senior engineer, advanced strategies, engine department; essentially the test team manager.

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Ricardo recounted the challenges of a test team driver: long hours of highly controlled at-the-limit driving without the sheer adrenaline push of a Grand Prix weekend. He also made it clear he was delighted to be where he was, rather than piloting an F1 back-marker.

John's comments were fascinating in detailing the complexities of firing up a modern Formula 1 car. It's a far cry from a couple of mechanics bump-starting the car onto the grid. There's a rigid schedule that's followed, whether during a Grand Prix weekend, test day or Laguna Seca demonstration.

Team mechanics specialize in different tasks: There's a chief mechanic, as well as one for engine, others for hydraulics, electronics and aero setup. Technicalities are so dense that no one engineer has expertise in it all. A test or race engineer is in charge, together with an engine engineer, an electronics engineer and a strategy or deputy car engineer coordinating systems interactions. Each has assigned responsibilities during any phase of a test or race session.

First, an hour before any firing-and typically two hours before any runs-the engine is warmed by forcing heated water through its coolant passages. And, by the way, it is water, not a glycol mixture or anything more exotic that cools an F1 engine.

Sensor functions are checked; mechanical checks are made as well as visual inspections of heat shields, harnesses and the like.

About an hour before leaving the garage, the car's engine is cranked-ignition off-to get oil pressure up and components lubricated. Its top end gets a dedicated priming of oil, but not too much. Each process, input and output has a specified window of acceptability; any deviation is reason for an abort and problem solving.

Once oil pressure, fuel pressure and other parameters are okay, the No. 1 mechanic switches on the ignition. And, in the confines of the garage, all positive hell breaks loose. It would be painful indeed to be anywhere nearby without ear protection.

Engineers peer at computer readouts. Three separate laptops were streaming data during this demonstration session. Obviously more would be used if dedicated sensors were fitted for special testing.

The engine idled at maybe 6000 rpm as John blipped its throttle via the computer keyboard. Mechanics checked for leaks of oil or hydraulic fluid. And there's a lot of the latter. As John explained, just about anything operating in the millisecond range-throttle, gear selection, and a host of other subsystems-depends on hydraulic actuation, not any mechanical linkage. It's easy to see why hydraulic failure will shut down a car in an instant.

Esso (Exxon Mobil) is the Toyota team's fuel and lubricant supplier. F1 regulations give detailed chemical and chromatographic profiles of acceptable fuel, "petrol as this term is generally understood." Although it doesn't burn your eyes like the "rocket fuel" of the 1980s, today's F1 fuel is nevertheless the product of highly confidential research. Similarly, though the car's lubricant may have begun life as Mobil 1 Synthetic, it has no doubt evolved considerably beyond this point.

A few more blips while engineers watch vital temperatures and pressures, then the silence is deafening. Other checks are performed, and Ricardo is ready to get to work.

A post-run shutdown is almost as complicated. There'll be a standard removal of the gearbox to inspect the clutch and gears for wear or damage. In fact, John said, unbolting a gearbox is less complex than disconnecting all of its wiring harnesses. Other sessions may require a complete teardown of the car: The engine cover comes off, the floor is removed.

A questionable telemetry reading might focus attention on a particular component or subsystem. If the car fails out on the circuit, telemetry may have already given an idea of what's amiss, and everybody gets ready as the car is flat-bedded back to the pits.

Even at a demonstration session, things aren't simple when you're running a modern F1 car. But I also sense that Toyota Motorsport's John Matsushima is having the time of his life.